Kenyans warned that donkeys are weapons

NAIROBI, Kenya — Pity the donkeys of northern Kenya: The country's military announced Thursday that those sold to the wrong people would be bombed.

The Twitter feed of Kenyan military spokesman, Maj. Emmanuel Chirchir, who is rapidly becoming the public face of Kenya's incursion into Somalia, warned that his forces had identified a new threat in the war against al-Shabab militants: loaded donkeys.

In conventional wars (if they even exist anymore), intelligence is concerned with mass movements of tanks and troops, but Kenya is watching out for mass movements of donkeys, which would be considered an enemy activity.

The reason, Chirchir explained in a flurry of messages late Thursday, was that "information reaching us confirms that al-Shabab has resorted to using donkeys to transport their weapons."